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City of Nobel Prize Winners

Lübeck is proud to claim three Nobel Prize winners among its residents: Thomas Mann (1875-1955 / Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929), Willy Brandt (1913-1992 / Nobel Peace Prize in 1971), and Günter Grass (born in Danzig in 1927 / Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999). All three claim this Hanseatic city as their home. The writer Thomas Mann was born here and for the first 18 years of his life called this city on the river Trave his home. The politician Willy Brandt was also born in Lübeck and, similarly, spent his formative years in the Hanseatic city. The author Günter Grass moved to Lübeck at the age of 68 - to be, as he once stated, "closer" to Thomas Mann and Willy Brandt.

Lübeck devotes a large effort to remembering all three Nobel Prize laureates: The "Buddenbrookhaus" at Mengstraße 4 is a literature museum that attracts visitors and experts on the Mann family from around the world. Here, all the works of Heinrich Mann and Erich Mühsam can be appreciated. The Günter Grass House at Glockengießerstraße 21, where the author maintained his writer's loft, is now presented as an exhibition and research center. The same function is planned for the Willy Brandt House, Königstraße 21, which is scheduled to open at the end of 2007.